> As long as you make sure that you're careful about allocating memory, > you should be fine. My particle engine utilizes two lists per system, > one for particles to be displayed and one for trash particles to be > reused. Eventually what I might want to do is simply have an engine list > for the trash particles, so that all the systems can dip into the same > pool. Anyway, though, the current system is plenty fast.
That's (almost) exactly how my particle system works, two linked lists. I thought about using arrays, too, but that's just a waste of memory I guess. In addition, if a particle burns out, what do you do? In a linked list, you just move the particle over to the list of particles to reuse. Then you adjust the next-pointer of the previous particle and you're fine. Now with an array, you would have to set this array position to NULL or so, then if you want to create a new particle, you'd iterate through the array, searching for a place that is NULL. Now do this if you have, say, 10000 particles. I guess that'll be slow, won't it? Just in case you're interested, here's mine: http://www.resourcecode.de/stuff/particles_eng.html cya, TheTinySteini _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
